Woody Allen on Sunday criticized HBO’s new documentary series on allegations of sexual abuse against him as a “hat job” that was “full of falsehoods.”
The decades-old allegations that Allen harassed Dylan Farrow when she was a child are “categorically false,” the 85-year-old director and his wife, Soon-Yi Previn, 50, said in a statement to The Hollywood Reporter.
“Several agencies investigated them at the time and found that, whatever Dylan Farrow could be led to believe, no abuse had ever occurred,” the statement said.
The couple broke the silence on “Allen vs. Farrow” shortly after the broadcast of the first of four episodes of the docuseries.
The series paints a striking picture of the Oscar winner, delving into the accusation of Mia Farrow’s daughter, Dylan, who sexually assaulted her in the family’s attic in 1992 when she was seven. Allen was Mia’s companion during Dylan’s early childhood.
The Oscar-winning director and his wife accused filmmakers Amy Ziering and Kirby Dick of “not being interested in the truth” and of “collaborating with the Farrows and their facilitators.”
The couple said they were only contacted by documentarians two months ago “and were only given a matter of days to respond.”
“Of course, they refused to do so,” the statement said.
The couple also hinted that HBO may have been biased, due to its business relationship with Allen’s estranged son, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Ronan Farrow, who signed a multi-film production deal with the network in 2018.
“Unfortunately, it’s not surprising that the network that broadcasts this is HBO, which has a permanent production deal and a business relationship with Ronan Farrow,” the statement said.
“While this small successful work may draw attention, it doesn’t change the facts.”